Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

This was a fascinating book that was a little hard to get used to at first. (My husband was reading it at the same time as I was - a little behind me actually - and he had the same issues at first.)
I didn't know that the story would jump around so much and I had to go back a bunch of time to figure out who was who and when everything was happening.

From the NYTimes:

Like “Bel Canto,” the best-known of Patchett’s six earlier novels, “Commonwealth” starts with an unexpected kiss at a party — in this case a kiss at the christening party for the infant Franny. Because the kiss in “Bel Canto” happens at the exact moment the party is overtaken by terrorists, it’s tempting to wonder if Patchett means to imply with “Commonwealth” that family is its own longer-term hostage situation: The embrace at the christening party between a man and woman married to other people leads soon enough to multiple divorces and remarriages. Patchett follows the two semi-connected families for the next 50 years, as the children become adults and the grown-ups become old.

After I read the book I listened to a podcast from KCRW (Bookworm) which changed my thinking about the book - but didn't change my enjoyment of it!